Richard McClean – Acting Managing Director

 

 

Chris Hanks – Head of Development

Chris is an engineering graduate with more than 30 years’ experience in the rail industry. Starting in British Rail’s Operational Research Department, Chris worked in a number of roles in BR’s Eastern and Southern Regions before joining the BR Business Systems’ team in York to help develop a new train planning system.  

Chris joined Alliance from Funkwerk Information Technologies, where he was Consultancy Manager. In that role Chris managed a wide variety of train service planning, timetable robustness and simulation projects, and Chris was influential in gaining train paths to Sunderland and Bradford for Grand Central. Prior to that, Chris led the development of TrainPlan, which is in use as a train planning system in major railways around the world, and designed ResourceManager, a software tool for managing the minute-by-minute assignment of rail vehicles and crews.

Chris prides himself on original thinking in his work, backed up by attention to detail and thorough analysis. He has worked effectively with railway managers around the world, from Norway to Australia, and is able to bring international knowledge to his new role.  That role, as Head of Development, will be to develop service plans and timetables for new services on behalf of Alliance.

Jonathan Cooper – Head of Contracts & Compliance

 

Jonathan is a marketing and business masters graduate with 23 years experience in the rail industry. Jonathan began his career with British Rail (Eastern Region) in Leeds, moving to work in the Regional Railways business review team based in York. Jonathan then moved to work for Railtrack in York and Birmingham and subsequently with Network Rail in Birmingham, York and London. 

Jonathan has held many different roles at Network Rail, including Regional Commercial Development Manager, Performance Manger and Track Access Manager. Within Network Rail, he has worked on several Open Access proposals and as part of Network Rail’s franchise bid review team, he was also involved in negotiating new contracts, training teams in track access and developing commercial policy.

Jonathan joined the team as Head of Contracts and Compliance.

(Vacancy) – Head of Systems

 

 

(Vacancy) – Head of Communications